The Elections, Appointments and Administration Committee on Thursday unanimously endorsed the proposal to elect Milorad Pupovac from the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) as Chairman of the Committee on Human and National Minority Rights.

Parliament will discuss the proposal on Friday.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced last week that Pupovac could be elected chairman of the said parliamentary committee after considerable controversy, provided he is nominated by the parliamentary group of national minorities.

“It is a tradition that the minority group always nominates its representative for the chairmanship of this committee. We, the HDZ, will respect this tradition, and other partners have agreed to this. The Domovinski pokret (DP) will see who the candidate is and vote accordingly. That is their business, but the coalition will function normally,” he said after a coalition meeting of the new parliamentary majority.

DP: We have made a compromise

DP leader Ivan Penava said after the meeting that the party would take a step back to ensure the stable functioning of the majority. He respected the position of Plenkovic and the HDZ as well as all other coalition partners that the minorities should decide who takes over the chairmanship of the committee, although the DP does not share this view.

“We have reached a compromise that we will see who this person is. If it is someone who is not a member of the SDSS, that is acceptable to the DP. If it is a member of the SDSS as a representative of the political party, the DP and our MPs will be against it, while we understand the position of the rest of the government majority, which supports this matter according to its own views and values,” Penava said.

He said the DP has nothing against any minority, but it has a lot to do when it comes to protecting the values of the Homeland War and human rights.

Grmoja: It is unusual that the ruling majority proposes Pupovac

We have received support for two issues that represent civilisational achievements and norms. One is a museum that deals with totalitarian regimes and treats fascism, communism and Nazism equally, and the other is the amendment of the Cemeteries Act to remove Chetnik monuments from Croatian territory, Penava said.

Earlier, MP Nikola Grmoja from the opposition Most party had said that it was unusual for the ruling majority to propose Pupovac as the chairman of the said committee, as he was involved in the distribution of parliamentary committees by the opposition.

If the opposition supports him, it means that they are helping Plenkovic and the survival of the HDZ-DP government, he added.